Commitment
by Disenchanted Cynic
Summary: -"Sasuke, what would you do if I left you and your fianceé my four-year-old daughter to take care of for the day?" "I'd kill you, Naruto." "Heh, heh -gulp-. Wait, really?"


**Heh, heh. Just a humorous little one-shot break. I really had to get this idea out of my head and on paper.**

* * *

-dingdong!-

Sasuke's eyes fluttered open reluctantly at the sound and quickly squeezed shut again as the morning sun pouring through the shafts of the shutters on the bedroom windows nearly blinded him. He glanced tiredly at the clock on the table beside the bed: barely 9:42 am on a Saturday. He moaned, flipping over and pressing a pillow over his head.

_'Ignore it. Go back to sleep, Sasuke.'_

-dingdong!-

"Grrr..." Sasuke growled, "Probably stupid Naruto."

"What is it, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura murmured beside him. Her green eyes were sleepy and only half open, and she was still curled up beside him under the covers.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep," Sasuke whispered, leaning down to lightly kiss her. She sighed and snuggled deeper into the blankets.

Sasuke glared towards the door as he carefully got out of bed, trying to be quiet about it. He pulled on a t-shirt and went to go answer the door, scowling darkly.

Oh, he was in some mood. He was going to murder whoever was bothering him, especially if it was a certain blond-haired, blue-eyed knucklehead of a ninja.

Sasuke pushed open the door and sure enough came face to face with a blonde, blue-eyed Uzumaki. Wrong one though. Sasuke blankly looked down at his doorstep, which was being inhabited by a tiny, four-year-old girl. She had chin length, bright blonde hair, very light blue eyes, pale skin, and a couple strange marks on her cheeks. The little girl smiled up at him with a mouth missing a couple teeth.

"Hi, Ji-chan!" she beamed. He looked at her blankly. What was Naruto's daughter doing on his doorstep at 10:00 am by herself? And could she quit calling him 'uncle'?

"Shiken, what are you doing here?" Sasuke asked the little girl.

"Shiken-chan?" Sakura asked, appearing beside Sasuke and wrapping him in a hug.

"Ba-chan!" Shiken cried, throwing herself at Sakura. The pink-haired medic nin caught the little girl and picked her up, laughing.

"Hey, where's your otou-san?" Sakura asked as the little girl wrapped her arms around her neck.

"Oooooo - I almost forgetted!"Shiken said. She untangled herself and hopped down. She dug around in the pocket of her shorts, then puffed up her chest importantly and proudly handed Sakura a note. Sasuke rested his chin on Sakura's shoulder and read it with her:

* * *

Dear Sasuke-teme and Sakura-chan,

There was this emergency, and me and Hinata-chan had to leave, so we're leaving Shiken-chan with you. It's only for today, so shut up and chill out, Sasuke.

-Naruto

* * *

Sasuke's right eye twitched and Sakura laughed.

"Come on in, silly. I'll make you breakfast," Sakura said, smiling at the little girl.

Shiken marched inside and took something else out of her pocket, "It's okay, Ba-chan. I broughted my own stuff to eat." She handed over a squished cup of instant ramen.

Sakura's smile grew, "Thank you! Why don't you play in the backyard while I make this for you?"

" 'Kay!"

Sasuke met Sakura in the kitchen, "Sakura," he protested, "What are we doing? You and I don't know a single thing about kids. We should let Neji and Tenten watch her - someone with experience."

Sakura laughed lightly as she boiled some water, "Sasuke-kun, just think of it as practice for when we have kids. Maybe then we will know what we're doing."

"Hn," he muttered, then turned her around and kissed her, "If you say so," he whispered against her lips, pulling her closer and resting their foreheads together.

"Eww!"

Shiken ran out of the kitchen and into the dining room, "You're worse than Ka-chan and Tou-chan!" she hollered over the sound of the door slamming shut. Sakura cracked up and even Sasuke had to smirk.

"Breakfast is ready!" Sakura called, "Go and practice bonding a little," she told Sasuke.

He rolled his eyes but went to go sit down when he saw the dead-serious glint in Sakura's eyes. Sasuke stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a seat. They both stared at each other blankly, like they had on poker faces or were having a staring contest or something.

-tick-

-tock-

-tick-

-tock-

Sasuke cleared his throat in the awkward silence. He couldn't believe he was seriously having an awkward silence with a four year old.

-tick-

-tock-

-tick-

-tock-

-tick-

-tock-

_'Oh, damn, what do I talk to a little kid about? Weapons? Missions? No - too... violent. Little girls would like rainbows, no... or ponies... or some crap like that. Do little kids like ponies? Uh... damn, Sasuke, think.'_

"So..." he started. His voice sounded weird coming back to his ears in the silence.

"Sooooooooooooooooo," she repeated, drawing out the word as long as she could with her tiny lungs.

"How's school?"

"I'm only four. I don't go to school yet."

"Oh."

-tick-

-tock-

-tick-

-tock-

Sasuke could not believe he was sweating bullets from an awkward silence with his best friend's little girl. Naruto was dead.

"Here's breakfast!" Sakura sang, carrying in the plates of food. Perfect. Saved. Thank you, Sakura.

"Mm!" Shiken grinned, slurping her ramen in a way that reminded Sasuke uncannily of Naruto. Did this girl really have any Hinata in her at all?

Over breakfast, Sasuke watched Sakura entertain the little girl with a story about one of Team Seven's funnier missions. He smiled a little to himself. Sakura was a natural. She would be a perfect mother.

"HA HA HA HA!" Shiken laughed hysterically, as Sakura grinned slyly. The little girl couldn't stop laughing. She laughed so hard, in fact, that she accidentally sprayed Sasuke with a mouthful of ramen noodles.

"Oops," she squeaked, going bright red, "Sorry, Oji-chan!" Ah, there was the Hinata in her.

Sakura ran and got Sasuke a towel.

"Hm," Sakura sat back down and tapped at her chin while Sasuke wiped noodles off his face, "It's Saturday, and we really don't have anything to do, so let's go to the park!"

"Yay!" Shiken shrieked, running outside to wait.

Sasuke sighed as he left with Sakura to go change. He had a feeling this was going to be a long day.

* * *

A couple minutes later, Sasuke was sitting on a bench at the park, watching Sakura push Shiken on the swings. He could hear their laughter all the way from the bench as Sakura jumped onto the swing beside Shiken and they tried to go higher than each other. Sasuke smirked at the sight of his fianceé - a fully-grown woman, playing on the playground like a little girl.

Suddenly, Tsunade appeared on the playground, beside the swings. Sasuke couldn't hear what they were saying from so far away, but he watched Sakura jump off the swing faster than if it had been on fire, her face burning red. They talked for a minute, then the Hokage left. Sakura took Shiken's hand and walked towards Sasuke.

"I'm so sorry, Sasuke-kun. Tsunade-sama says there is an emergency only I can handle at the hospital. It should only take an hour or two. But I'll meet you at Ichiraku Ramen for lunch, okay? I'm so, so sorry!" Sakura said, shaking her head. Her face was apologetic.

"It's okay. We'll find something to do and meet you there later," Sasuke said.

Sakura's face broke into a smile, "Thank you so much, Sasuke-kun! I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Hn."

Sakura deposited Shiken on the bench and kissed the top of her head, "Bye, sweetie. I have something to take care of real quick, so Sasuke-oji-san is going to hang out with you for a little bit. But for lunch we'll all go to Ichiraku, okay?"

"Yay!" the little girl cried, clapping her hands, "Bye, Ba-chan!" she hugged Sakura, jumping up and down excitedly, "Me 'n Ji-chan can go on the slide! I'm too scareded, but he can go down with me and it won't be scary!"

Sakura chuckled at the expression on Sasuke's face. She leaned in and kissed him. "Bye, Sasuke-kun! I love you!" and she hurried off towards the hospital.

Sasuke looked down at the little girl who was giving him an expectant look. He shrugged. At least now he knew what he had to do.

"So, you, er, want to slide?" Sasuke asked uncertainly, scratching the back of his head.

"Yesssssssssss!" she said, pumping her little fist in the air and drawing out the 's'.

Sasuke took her tiny, pale hand and let her lead him to the slide, her blonde hair bouncing as she dragged Sasuke between dozens of laughing parents and shrieking kids enjoying their Saturday at the park.

Shiken stopped on one end of the playground and dropped Sasuke's hand. Her light blue eyes went big and perfectly round with awe as she tilted her head as far back as it would go in order to look at the top of the awesome, massive piece of playground equipment. To her four year old eyes, it was huge and almost unconquerable. Even with Sasuke beside her, staring at it with an arched eyebrow, she could totally see the sky suddenly go dark, lightning flashing behind the slide as Orochimaru's special ominous, organ music played in her head.

To Sasuke's twenty-two year old eyes, it looked like a very unoffending piece of blue plastic that was still about two inches short of meeting his eye level.

Shiken gripped the side of Sasuke's pants and pulled herself behind him.

"You can go first, Ji-chan."

"Er, how about we go together, and I sit behind you?" Sasuke asked. No way in hell was Uchiha Sasuke going to be seen going down a slide without the little kid he was babysitting in plain sight. It would not look good.

"Okay!" she beamed, grabbing his hand again and leading Sasuke through the play set the slide was connected to. Carefully, Shiken got into the hole that was the opening of the slide, held onto the walls tightly to keep from falling without Sasuke there, and turned around, waiting for him to get behind her. Sasuke groaned and tried to fit his too-tall frame in the hole. Somehow, he managed to do it.

"Ready, Ji-chan?" Shiken asked excitedly, all set to let go.

Sasuke swallowed the last of his pride and dignity and nodded. She let go.

"Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Shiken jumped off the end of the slide and looked up at Sasuke.

"Why didn't you go with me?" she asked, stomping her foot, "Oh well, it don't matter, Ji-chan! I wasn't even scared!"

She eyed him squished at the top of the slide.

"Ji-chan?"

"..."

"Are you... stuck?"

"..."

"OMIGOSH! SASUKE-JI-CHAN IS STUCK!" she shrieked, throwing her hands on top of her head. Half the people in the playground turned around and stared at Sasuke on the slide. No, maybe this was the last of his pride.

"DON'T WORRY! I'M GONNA GO GETS A WAY TO GET YOU UNSTICKED! LIKE BUTTER!" she hollered and took off running.

"No! Shiken! Stay here!" Too late. She'd already disappeared.

"DAMMIT!" Sasuke swore, punching the stupid, stupid slide beneath him.

A woman walking by stopped and glared at him, "Don't you use that kind of language in front of my son!" she smacked him with her handbag and led her son away, her hands over the little boy's ears and her nose in the air. The rest of the people there turned to look at him. Now all dignity has been lost. And he couldn't even just break the damn thing with all the kids around.

"Don't worry - I'll call some of the Hokage's men!" some guy called, probably having no idea that Sasuke himself was actually one of the Village's most powerful ninja.

_'Great,'_ he thought darkly_, 'The only thing left to complete this lovely scenario and make it as bad as it can possibly get is if a dog came and pissed on me.'_ Thankfully, though, the slide was too high for dogs.

_'Okay, I was wrong - this is worse,' _he thought as he watched the villager come back with two ninja. They both burst out laughing when they saw him. Oooooh, they were never going to let him live this down. Never. His pride was in the negatives now.

"Hey, Sasuke," Hyuga Neji and Nara Shikamaru cracked up, slapping each other on the back and doubling over laughing.

_'I hate my life.'_

"Hmmm, looks like he's stuck, huh, Shikamaru?" Neji asked.

"Yup, I think so."

"Huh, guess we better pull him out - can't break it with all these kids around, as he probably figured out, which is why he's still stuck," Neji grinned, "Well, that means we'd be interacting with another Village Jonin on the Hokage's hours. That means we have to get it on record." He pulled out a camera.

_'I really hate my life.'_

"Say cheese."

-flash-

Grinning at the camera and at Sasuke, who was sending them his darkest scowl, Neji put the camera back in his pocket. "Okay, Nara. You push - I pull."

A minute later and Sasuke was out of the slide, the camera beaten out of Neji, and the picture erased.

"How'd you get stuck on a playground slide, Uchiha?" Neji asked, rubbing his now-sore jaw, "Naruto would have loved it," he said, looking wistfully at the camera and it's newly-deleted photographic proof.

"Grrr... it was his fault. I was watching his daughter for him and OH MY GOD SHE'S STILL MISSING!" Sasuke took off running, leaving Shikamaru and Neji.

"Whatever."

"..."

"Wanna go on the swings?"

"Hell yeah!"

* * *

Sasuke ran through the Village, avoiding the hospital though, looking for the little girl. He couldn't find her anywhere - not the Academy, or the training fields, or any of the shops in town, not even Ichiraku. It was like she'd disappeared.

_'She's going to make one hell of a ninja one day if even I can't find her,' _Sasuke thought darkly to himself as he ran all over Konoha, looking, _'Of course, if I can't find her...'_

The Uchiha decided to check the residential area of the Village now. Maybe she'd gone over to a friend's house. Wasn't she always hanging out with Kurenai's kid? Sasuke finally reached the housing division and sprinted for the area where most of the Village's ninja lived. On his way to Kurenai's door, he smacked right into Kakashi, who was reading his book and not looking where he was going. Sasuke shook of the urge to grab the book and throw it, and helped his teacher up instead.

"Gee, thanks, Sasuke, I-

"KAKASHI!! Have you seen Naruto's daughter, Shiken?!" Sasuke yelled.

Kakashi raised his one visible eyebrow, "What? Don't tell me you lost a four year old, Sasuke. That's not very - hey, this means you got out of the slide!"

"How did you know about th - OH, JUST TELL ME!!"

"Well, I saw her a few minutes ago. She wanted butter."

"Butter?"

"Butter. She said you were stuck in a playground slide and you needed butter. So I gave her my dairy products to help you, and I see it worked. Aren't I an awesome sensei, to give up my precious butter for the greater good?" Kakashi said proudly.

_'I'm going to ignore most of that...'_ "WHICH WAY DID SHE GO?!"

"Thataway," Kakashi said offhandedly, pointing to the left, "And you'd better hurry - she mentioned meeting Sakura at Ichiraku soon. Later," he waved cheerily, picking up his book as Sasuke took off running.

_'Okay, if she's weighed down by dairy products she can't have gotten far,' _Sasuke thought logically, trying to think rationally as he ran in what was hopefully the right direction. Suddenly, his feet slid out from underneath him and hit hit the floor. Hard.

"Ugh," Sasuke groaned, sitting up slowly, "What the hell was that? What's this?" he shifted on the ground and picked up the slightly soft, silver rectangle that he'd slipped on. Butter. "Good, she's got to be close!" he muttered, jumping to his feet. Where was he anyway? He turned around and saw trees and a path with joggers and a... playground.

"STUPID, SASUKE!! JUST STUPID!!" he shouted, smacking himself hard in the head. In the middle of the street. While people stared and backed slowly away. I don't know about you, but I think this is driving Sasuke just the tiniest bit, oh, I don't know, insane.

After having his little mental breakdown, Sasuke ran to the playground, and sprinted for the slide. He saw little kids, of the proper size, going down the slide and not getting stuck. There were kids climbing on some bars and bragging to each other about being able to do chin ups, and kids playing in the sand, and parents standing outside the fence or sitting inside, watching and talking with other parents. He saw Neji and Shikamaru on the swings. Wait - what was that last one? He did a double take and watched the two grown men swing like giddy little children. Huh, he never thought he'd see the day. Neji spotted him watching with a smirk on his face and pulled Shikamaru off the swings. Both of them tripped and jumped to their feet, making excuses.

"Uh, it's swing inspection day!"

"I dropped a quarter!"

"We're looking for a rogue ninja!"

"Swings are excellent training tools - don't be a hater, Uchiha!" they screamed after him as he ran to the slide. He ignored them and stopped in front of the blue hunk of plastic. We meet again, demon slide. Resisting the urge to kick it, Sasuke felt his stomach twist as he realized that Shiken wasn't there. All the butter had been abandoned there though.

He was a dead man. Dead. From Sakura, Naruto, and probably Hinata too. Hey, he'd once seen the shy little Hinata beat a woman in the store with her purse for being rude to her daughter. It was a little scary. And that was just over a box of ice cream. Imagine what would happen if he LOST HER. And Naruto. Ow. He didn't even want to picture the possibilities. Sakura. Oh, great. She'd think he was awful and irresponsible and not fit to be a father, and she would break up with him and they'd never have kids and the Uchiha clan would die out because he would never, ever be with anyone else and he would have to watch while Sakura married someone like Lee or Kiba and had kids with them and continued to hate him for losing Naruto's daughter while he missed her and died of a broken heart, or pneumonia. He hated pneumonia. And Kakashi would probably be mad a him for all his butter being gone too.

Just as he was thinking of all the awful, horrible possibilities and falling into a depression, Sasuke happened to look up and see a head of bright, blonde hair. At the duck pond.

_'Oh, crap. Please be her, please be her, please be her, please be her...' _he chanted inside his head as he made a break for the duck pond. As he got closer, he could tell - it was definitely Shiken. She was climbing onto the pond by balancing on rocks that jutted across the surface of the water in random places, and were obviously not for climbling. Her thin, golden hair was a little wet and was plastered to the side of her pale face. Her tongue stuck out between her lips and her eyebrows furrowed like she was trying very hard to keep her balance. From what Sasuke could tell, she was trying to touch one of the ducks, that was sitting on a rock almost in the middle of the murky, green pond, sunning itself in the bright, noontime sun. Oh, thank Kami-sama it was finally her.

As Sasuke ran for the duck pond, something pastel colored came out of nowhere and whacked him. The air was knocked out of him and he stumbled backward, gasping. It was the woman before, who'd hit him on the slide when he cursed. She had her purse in her hands and was swinging it around.

"Well, well, well, it's the potty mouth, come back to corrupt our children!" she shrieked, trying to hit him with her purse again. He was pretty sure there were a couple of bricks in there - at least three. Okay, Sasuke's a ninja, so this wasn't even remotely difficult, but boy was it inconvenient. It's not like he could fight back - it was just some psycho mom with a bag of bricks for Kami-sama's sake, she wasn't a ninja - and she tried to chase him when he'd run for Shiken and the duck pond. He could only think of one thing not to lose the little girl again.

"SHIKEN!! DON'T MOVE!! IT'S ME, SASUKE!! I'M RIGHT HERE!!" he shouted.

Shiken heard him call her from the pond, and looked up. Unfortunately, she lost her careful balance and slipped off the rocks and into the pond. Which was surprisingly deep.

"DAMMIT!!" Sasuke swore.

"POTTY MOUTH!!"

"LADY, GO AWAY!!" Sasuke yelled, then had a thought, "SHIKAMARU!! NEJI!! GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE AND GET HER OFF ME, NOW, OR I'LL TELL EVERYONE ABOUT YOUR 'SWING INSPECTION', AND I'LL FIND A WAY TO PULL UP SURVEILLANCE VIDEO AS PROOF!!"

Neji and Shikamaru poofed to his side and grabbed the woman's arms in about half a second flat. Yeah, I would too.

Sasuke sprinted to the pond and dove in, water splashing everywhere. He swam over to the rocks and grabbed Shiken, who was clinging to the biggest rock, her eyes as wide as dinner plates and looking very much like a drowned cat. Sasuke took her leg and pulled her so that she was on his back, then swam back to the bank of the pond.

"Th-th-th-thanks, S-s-s-s-sasuke-oji-chan," Shiken stuttered as she shivered, "Y-y-you're my h-hero!!" she beamed, taking his large hand in hers and giving him a big hug.

He may have been soaking wet and cold, with bruises all over him from falling so much, and a concussion from the psycho lady's purse of doom, but he couldn't help but smile and feel good as he hugged the little girl back.

* * *

Back at the Uchiha place about nine hours later, Sakura rested her head on Sasuke's lap and he played with her hair. He and Shiken had met Sakura at Ichiraku for lunch, with their hair wet and wrapped in blankets, which had of course led to Sakura questioning them, and Shiken had gushed on and on about how Sasuke saved her. Naruto and Hinata had picked her up a few minutes ago, and Sasuke just barely managed to fight the urge to strangle Naruto on sight in front of his wife, friend, and child.

Sakura slowly sat up straight and leaned her head on Sasuke's shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.

"I'm really proud of you, Sasuke-kun, you know that? You'd be a good father. A great father," Sakura murmured, smiling.

"Thanks. You're going to be a good mother."

Sakura turned in his arms and her bright, green eyes met his calm, onyx ones, "So, after everything that happened today, what do you think? Do you want to have kids?"

Sasuke stared back at his wife. He brushed her pink hair out of her face and gently stroked the side off her cheek.

"Definitely."

* * *

**Aw! Sasuke has a heart! Sorry - I just got this idea one morning and I had to finish it and get it out of my head. I hope you liked it and didn't think it was too corny. Say it's for father's dad. Please review, or I just may send psycho mom and her purse of doom after you! -rubs hands together evilly-**


End file.
